


A Sturdy Foundation

by strix_alba



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strix_alba/pseuds/strix_alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nita returns to the library where it all began...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sturdy Foundation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QuinFirefrorefiddle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuinFirefrorefiddle/gifts).



> Dearest recipient: This fic was born when I saw that you'd requested library anthropomorfic along with Young Wizards. It's not technically anthropomorfic, I don't think? I hope that you find it satisfactory :) Merry Christmas!

The young woman walking down Rose Avenue that afternoon was unexceptional in almost every way. She was average-looking, sixteen or seventeen, in casual clothing, with a backpack slung over her shoulder. The bag may have had “Alterf System Foosball Champions, Division M” written on the body in iridescent lettering; and her sneakers may have been coated with a generous amount of fine grey dust; but to the casual observer, she was an absolutely unremarkable member of the teenage population walking the streets of the town on a spring day in May.

The conversation she was carrying on, however, was not. The content — the date to which she was walking — would have aroused no interest, except that she was carrying it on in her head.

 _He’s playing Khan, I’m calling it now,_ Kit said.

Nita rolled her eyes. _Oh, come on, that’s not even a question. And no, I did not get that from Dairine,_ she added, anticipating his next comment.

Kit hummed, and Nita felt him grin. _I didn’t say anything._

 _I’m at the library now,_ Nita said, by way of a distraction. _Gonna go drop off my books before I meet you. I don’t want to get on Mrs. Lesser’s bad side._

Kit snorted. _Does that mean you’re done with the history paper?_

 _Yep. No more Marx for me_ , Nita sang as she headed up the porch of the little brick building which housed the library.

_Praise the One. I never want to hear you think about the proletariat again._

Nita bit her lip to keep from smiling. _Did you know that there’s an island on Midnight where the local population managed to keep up a communist government for a couple hundred generations?_

 _Didn’t their entire civilization also implode once multicellular organisms started to evolve?_ Kit pointed out.

Nita let the door swing shut behind her and stifled a snort of laughter. This last quarter hadn’t been too great, not as good as it could have been anyway, and she’d really needed this paper to bring her grade up. According to Kit, it had been like constantly having a radio pundit playing softly in the next room.

The librarian, Mrs. Lesser, looked up sharply at the combination of disruptive noises, although the disapproval on her face softened when she recognized the source of the disruption.

 _Well yeah, obviously it wasn’t sustainable after that,_ Nita said to Kit. _I’ll see you in twenty_. She waved at Mrs. Lesser, who gave her a quick smile.

“Hey, Mrs. L. How’s it going?” Nita asked, as she began to unload her books onto the counter.

“More of the usual. You going to turn red on us?” Mrs. Lesser asked with a smile, holding up _Freud, Marx, and Morals_.

“Just a history project. Political schools of thought,” Nita explained, leaning against the circulation desk. She watched Mrs. Lesser check the books back in with a series of motions that seemed almost mechanical, and Nita frowned. It could have been that it was late on a Saturday afternoon, and she was eager to be out of the building, but it seemed … off.

It could be Nita who was off. It had been a while since she was in the library for any length of time, or stopped to chat with Mrs. Lesser the way that she used to. She'd been busy, even though she knew that was just an excuse, senior year and college applications and an apprenticeship to Irina on top of her regular errantry with Kit leaving her struggling to carve out time enough for her old haunts. But Nita was a wizard, first and foremost, and a wizard quickly learned to trust their gut instincts. "Are you sure everything's okay?" she persisted.

Mrs. Lesser finished checking in the last book and put her elbows on the counter. "Can't get anything past you, can I?"

Nita shrugged and tried to look innocent.

Mrs. Lesser sighed. "You know this building's history, right? Built in the seventies, used to be a private home until the grandson of the original owners donated it. It's old, honey. Us lowly keepers of the public knowledge aren't getting the funding we need to fix it up properly."

"How bad is it?" Nita asked. She'd always thought of the building as comfortably shabby, much like her copy of the Manual, but not to the point of being difficult to use.

Mrs. Lesser shuffled books onto a cart, and while Nita watched, wheeled them out from behind the desk. "Last month's raffle wasn't quite enough to cover the costs of the repairs that they need to make to the second floor, and to the stairs. Almost all of the wood is original, and safety codes aren't what they used to be. You get a couple of kids tripping on warped wood, all of a sudden it's a safety hazard instead of natural selection like it was back in my day."

Nita laughed; in spite of the pang she felt at Mrs. Lesser's carefully-hidden distress, the beginnings of an idea formed in her mind. "Is that it? Just the floors?" she asked.

Mrs. Lesser looked as though she was debating whether or not to go on. Nita gave her the best reassuring smile that she could manage, and she continued. “And the windows are drafty, and the ceilings started creaking last winter over the biographies section because there's the computer bank on the floor over it," Mrs. Lesser continued. She replaced _Death Comes to Pemberley_ on the shelf and moved on to the library's small but prominently displayed Fantasy section.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Lesser," Nita said. She picked up another book off the cart and went down the narrow row of shelves to reshelve it. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Not unless you know a good contractor willing to do work for charity," Mrs. Lesser replied with a twist of her mouth.

Nita shook her head and apologized once more, before making an excuse about wanting to go look at the new arrivals. Once there, she picked out a book at random and flipped through the pages as though perusing it with interest, while her mind was about a mile away. _Kit,_ she hissed. _Got a moment?_

Kit listened as Nita explained the issue. _We’re not gonna make the 6:30 show, are we_ , he said, sounding equal parts amused and resigned.

_Kit…_

He dragged out the silence until Nita started to wonder if maybe he was genuinely upset. It didn't seem like Kit, but for someone who got to travel off-planet on a fairly regular basis, he was surprisingly enthusiastic about his sci-fi franchises. _You’re gonna owe me a_ Voyager _marathon,_ he informed her.

Nita grinned. _We could catch the 3D show an hour_ ...

Kit shuddered down their mental connection. _I'll stick to small-screen and no headache, if it's all right with you._

 _You're the best. I'll ping you when I'm done here_ , Nita assured him. She turned her attention away from their connection and wound her way around the main staircase towards the back of the old house. After the Children’s Room, the first-floor reference section, with all of its knowledge of everything bound up in thick hardcover sets of volumes, was her favorite place to sit — and far more likely to afford her a quiet area to work. The first weapon in a wizard's arsenal was the spoken word, and so Nita would talk to the library first.

 _It's wood and brick,_ she reasoned. _Stone and plants. I'm good with one of them — even if I've changed specialties a bit ..._ Her mouth twisted ruefully as she settled into the sturdy upholstered chair in the corner of the reference section.

Nita shut her eyes and let her consciousness dissipate, escaping from the confines of her body to encompass the whole of the building. She let her mind go blank, waiting for awareness to seep its way through to her. And layered over that, the sense of a universe much larger than that contained by her own body; a universe bounded by brick and mortar instead of cells. Nita settled further back into the upholstered chair and waited for the library to come to her.

When it did, it came in a slow creep of dark-paneled walls, heavy furniture, and the smell of old books that settled around her like a cloud of dust. Nita looked around.

 _What do we have here?_ she asked.

 _Age_ , sighed the library around her.

Nita blinked. She knew better than most people that nearly everything was alive, — even buildings — in some capacity or another; but _aware_ … that was new. _Uh, hi. Dai stihò._

 _Dai stihò_ , the library murmured back.

 _I’m Nita_ , she said.

_I know you. You used to come every week, for years. I saw you grow from a small child to a defender of Life under my care._

_Oh…_ Nita wasn’t sure how to respond. The sentiment wasn’t condemnatory, or nostalgic. It simply was. _Yeah, I … I’ve been busy. I’m sorry._

Around her, the walls of the building (and, she thought, the books themselves) radiated the sort of amusement that a grandparent might derive from the antics of a small child. _So it happens. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to discover that there are lives outside of books quite as complex and interesting as the lives of those within_.

 _But I wouldn’t have found out at all if it wasn’t for books,_ Nita found herself pointing out.

 _Always pleased to be useful,_ the library ‘said’, and Nita was sure that she detected a hint of smug satisfaction. She couldn’t help but smile, although she was quick to check herself lest the library might mistake it for condescension. Life took many forms, and just because this particular form was a man-made structure didn’t mean it was any less worthy of pride than she was.

 _Thank you_ , she said, meaning it. She considered the universe surrounding her, wound through the walls and floors, the shelves and the books. The practice universes, when she had visited them, had had a stern, sterile quality to them. The smaller universes, planets and people alike, were complex and volatile, resistant to her intrusion. In the library, she felt almost none of that sterility or that resistance. It felt well-worn and well-loved; built up over the decades layer by layer, a cocoon of cobwebs that had been around long enough to become conscious of itself and take to heart its role as a repository of the written word. _I’d like to pay you back_ , she said.

Nita focused her attention on the cobweb-like structure, seeking out the parts where the layers felt thinnest and most worn down. The library observed her as she did so, which was an odd feeling that Nita tried to brush off.

_What do you seek?_

_Mrs. L._ — and Nita is pleased to feel the glowing regard of the Rose Avenue Public Library when she mentions the name — _said there were some issues with the walls and things. I came back here to see what I could do._

 _Errantry, then, young wizard of mine._  

 _It wasn’t in the plan — my plan, anyway,_ Nita admitted. _Seems like Someone made other ones while I wasn’t looking._

_And what do you propose to do about them?_

_Well_ … Nita said cautiously. _I was going to ask for permission to restructure the building, just a little bit._ She felt the library become fractionally less inviting, and clenched her hands in her lap to keep herself from biting her nails. _Nothing big — you’d still be you, and you’d hardly even feel the difference. Just enough to make it safe, so you can stay open._

_Hm…_

_I’d just make one or two tweaks. I’d straighten the beams of the second floor, and stretch the windows, stabilize the stairs. Think of it as a tuning-up instead of needing to bring in replacement parts_ , Nita suggested.

She waited and tried her best to relax while the library considered her offer. The front door swung open and shut, stirring the air around her; and still, she waited.

 _I have known you since you were small_ , it finally told her _, and I have sheltered you almost as long. You may repay this favor if you wish; and I will decide whether or not to keep these changes you propose._

Nita smiled. _I’m going to need to find your kernel_ , she said. She got up out of the chair and stretched, her joints cracking as they tended to do these days. _I don’t suppose you’re going to offer me any hints, are you?_ she asked.

The waiting silence from the library was her only answer. She sighed. _Fair enough_. The building was modestly-sized, and the library had agreed — albeit with reservations — to let her modify it, so there was no real reason that she would have a difficult time finding the heart of the library.  Nita let herself relax, swaying on the spot; when she moved, she did so as if by chance, drifting through the door into the small alcove between the back room and the old front hall and listing to the right.

She knew immediately that it was the correct choice from the way that the colors of the rooms seemed deeper, richer, than they normally did. Nita wandered into the teen fiction room and ran her hands along the shelves and collecting dust against her fingertips. She fancied that the walls leaned in to watch her work, a more intimate gaze than the universe leaning in to listen to her when she did active wizardry. But nothing about the room stood out to her, nothing stronger or more real than anything else, and so she left it and moved on down the hallway.

Nita continued in this vein through two more rooms, but the closer that she got to the front room, the less sure she felt of her decision. She turned around and headed back to teen fiction, following the path that felt most like the worn, dusty welcome that she associated with the library. This time, she stood in the middle of the room and looked at it closely, scouring the shelves one by one.

 _The floor_ , Nita decided, after what felt like several minutes. The carpeting in the corner closest to the door, in particular, felt just a little more alive than the rest of the room. But no other aspect of it stood out, and Nita was fairly certain that there was no kernel in here …

She felt a flash of impatience from the library, and wracked her brains. She heard an enormous groan from the floor above her as someone walked across the second story, and it hit her: she had forgotten the basement.

“Watch your step, Nita!” Mrs. Lesser reminded her as she jogged past the front desk towards the basement.

“Sorry!” she called back over her shoulder, throat dry.

The children’s section of the library had been Nita’s favorite part of the library when she was younger, and she still visited it frequently. It was the largest single room by far in the building, brightly lit and dotted by small chairs and tables with fading paint. The room seemed dimmer than usual, and for a few confused moments, Nita thought that she had had the wrong idea… at least until her gaze traveled across the room towards the far end, underneath the area where the library’s presence had felt the strongest. She strode across the room, sidestepping a small girl attempting to teach her mother English. Neither of them paid her any mind.

The whole far end of the children’s room shone out with vibrancy and the smugly protective regard that Nita felt when the library had spoken to her; but she felt pulled to one shelf near the ceiling with the pull that she had learned to associate with the heart, the kernel of the universe in which she worked.

Nita dragged one of the small chairs over to the shelf and wiggled it with her foot, testing its durability before trusting it with her entire weight. It wobbled a bit, and a couple flakes of blue paint floated down towards the thin carpet under its legs, but held. She stood on top of it and surveyed the shelves before her. The whole area clamored for her attention. Nita shut her eyes to filter out the extraneous barrage of information. She concentrated on finding the source of all of the liveliness, stretching out her hands in her mind's eye and pushing aside the physical obstacles in her way. The kernel shivered and pressed itself away from her hands. Nita made as if to scour the shelves sideways; at the last moment, she switched directions and felt a sudden rush of power as her hands closed around the library's kernel. She opened her eyes.

She had shoved her hands behind the row of juinior-edition encyclopedias on the top shelf. Slowly, Nita drew out her prize, and when she saw it, she couldn't help but laugh. The kernel of the library, the embodiment of the essence of the Rose Avenue Public Library, had manifested itself within the context of her spell as a small, battered copy of _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_. Its spine had been broken many times over and taped back together with book tape; the corners of the cover had crumbled away; and it smelled of dust and wood and, for reasons unbeknownst to Nita, lavender perfume. The disembodied head of a lion looked up at her solemnly. It seemed to shimmer in her hands.

Nita found it difficult to look at the cover for any length of time. She opened the book and concentrated on the table of contents; the ink fought her, resistant to allow her access to its contents. _Stop it_ , Nita ordered the kernel. _You’re only hurting yourself._

After a few more permutations and spirals, she was able to run her finger down a page of curling blue Speech, looking for the right sections and clicking out her space pen in order to make some modifications. Her work was made more difficult by the unruly script that attempted to change its shape around her pen. Nita stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she argued with the kernel, manipulating the internal structure of the beams just a little bit. Just enough to strengthen the lignin bonds with encouragement and allowing the old glass of the windows to become just a little more fluid, able to flow into the gaps of the sills into which they had been set. While she was there, Nita scanned through the rest of the kernel’s contents, looking for any potential or upcoming weaknesses. The longer she held it, the more agitated she felt the library become. The kernel jumped in her hands. “ _Almost done_ ,” she murmured to it. “ _You’ve got a crack over here, I’m just going to seal that up before it gets to water damage. You’ll thank me later.”_

When she had finished, she put the book back behind the shelf where she had found it. The library exuded a sense of tentative exploration, as though trying on a new coat it doubted would actually fit. Nita waited to drop the background wizardry required to stay aware of the library’s consciousness, testing for its response.

 _Hm…_ it said.

 _What do you think?_ Nita asked.

The silence was so long that for a moment, Nita thought that perhaps she had accidentally canceled the spell after all. Then the library spoke, sounding pleased but confused.

_Yes … yes, I think that will do nicely. You’ll be back to check on the quality, maintain it? I cannot provide any sort of service if the wizardry fails and the structure is compromised._

Nita nods. _Sure. I’ll set up a notification subroutine tomorrow_.

_Then I thank you, Nita Callahan. My wizard._

_My library_.

It felt enough like a parting that Nita felt comfortable dropping the spell. The intensity and humming awareness that had surrounded her faded back to normal, non-wizardly levels; but as Nita left the library, she thought that, perhaps, the whole structure seemed a bit more solid.

She stepped outside, about to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun, and found herself blinking abruptly at the silhouettes of trees stark against the purple sky. _Damn it_ , she thought. She’d been inside longer than she’d thought, which she supposed she should have expected. She checked her watch and started — she’d been inside for nearly two hours.

 _You miss me?_ she asked Kit.

_Oh hey, Neets. How’d it go communing with the books?_

_I’ll check back tomorrow. It wouldn’t let me set the changes permanently until it’d had a chance to get used to the effects._

_Ungrateful pile of bricks_ , Kit said without venom.

Nita snickered. _Careful. If it hadn’t given me the Manual, you’d have been stuck doing your Ordeal on your own._

_And probably wouldn’t have ended up being chased by evil sentient helicopters. Come on over, Mama’s made those sweet empanadas that 'Mela likes so much, and I’ve got season one of Star Trek queued up._

Kit sounded so unapologetically gleeful — and the smell bleeding through from the kitchen on his end of the conversation — that Nita grinned and stepped off the sidewalk into the trees on the other side of the street. She tugged on the ‘beam-me-up-to-Kit’s-location’ charm on her bracelet, said the final syllable, and vanished, prepared to enjoy her date with the satisfaction of having served Life to the best of her ability.

**Author's Note:**

> On the library's name: It's on Rose Avenue in the books, and I don't think it was given a name, so I picked the easy way out.
> 
> I haven't read the Millennium Editions with the revised timelines yet, so I don't know if this matches that chronology. For reference, I set it one or two years after A Wizard of Mars, in May 2013.


End file.
